I can still smell the sweet, red cedar steam rising off the hot water and the soft melting of snowglobe-sweet snowflakes on my naked shoulder. I can still hear the silence, the laughter, the crackle of the fire… Breathing in everything I need to be whole and well in this world. Breathing out everything life on Earth needs to be whole and well in this world.

Every ending is a beginning and as I reflect back on the last decade, I fell from the 21st floor of a skyscraper on the island of Hong Kong onto the hill top here at Rootstock, thrashing and crashing the whole way. The amount of life that can be lived in one year is staggering and the lifetimes that can unfold in ten makes me question the whole construct of time and space. Seven incarnations have been born and died in the last ten years and I’m totally the same, totally changed and possibly, finally, maybe coming to terms with my incredible resilience and expansive creativity. I can breath new life into my life, shape shift, bounce, return, change and stay the same with more grace than I could ten years ago and I am so grateful to see this journey unfold from this new vista. I’ve spent plenty of New Year’s Eves dripping in sequins and revelry and this year I craved a different kind of space. I craved sacred space to reflect, release, listen, breath, share and connect. This past decade was incredibly painful. Incredibly scary. Incredibly confusing. Incredibly humbling. Incredibly incredible and I wanted the strength and support of a circle to help me hold and integrate that truth and celebrate the other truth, the flipside, that I have emerged from this wringer softer, wiser, clearer, kinder and in love with myself and my vision for my life.

The alchemy of this years gathering - the 1st annual Conscious New Year - was palpable, spanning genders, ages, geographies and world views. The sharing was authentic, poetic, medicinal and joyful. The Dragon generously offered to compost those things that we wished not to carry into the new year and we tenderly-made medicine bundles to hold all our hopes and intentions for the year ahead, each bundle adorned with a candle and a match since we know that it will get dark again - it always does - and we’ll need some light. Feasting, laughing, singing, crying, opening, stretching and receiving may not be everybody’s ideal way to slide into a new cycle but, damn, was it everything I could have hoped and dreamed for and more. Ending the night soaking in hot water with fire light and falling snow made me imagine what the Garden of Eden felt like in winter and we had the embodied experience of wanting for nothing and loving everything we made together that night. It was a beautiful, powerful dream.

The whole idea of “New Year, New You” leaves a lot of room for failure and disappointment, in my experience, and so I’m evolving the notion of resolutions to invitations. Here’s what I invite in in 2020 for myself and anyone that would benefit from these morsels of truth:

1. LOVE WHAT YOU HAVE - You’re perfect. Your body, your partner, your children, your house, your procrastination, your manic mood swings, your doubt, your lust, your fear, your dirty litter box, your wild, weedy garden, your unfinished book, your sickness, your meek bank account, your failures. Love your current life without restraint exactly as it is, especially the dark, ugly and hard-to-love parts. Kiss them in your dreams, welcome them home and allow yourself the comfort of not needing to change a fucking thing for a moment. You don’t need to change a fucking thing. You are loveable. You are enough.

2. BREATHE IS MEDICINE - Breath in a little longer, a little deeper, a little more consciously every day. Hold the breath and enjoy the sensation of your mind and body stopping for a moment. Breath out so hard and loud that you spit a little and blow snot right out your nose. Don’t be shy about sucking in life force, holding it passionately and blowing it out like a canon. Feed your brain, blood and organs oxygen like you feed yourself. Be a glutton about it. Breath like you are breathing for the whole world and watch your status change.

3. THE WORLD NEEDS YOU - Energy flows where your mind goes so point your brilliance, creativity, irreverence, direct actions, healing, humor, labor and life force towards your creative destiny and the work that whispers to your soul. Bring your attention to the life you want to manifest. Decide what you want to be and be that.

4. DISCIPLINE YOURSELF - Anything worthwhile takes work. Take your impact on yourself, your community and everything that exists seriously. What you do and say and how you do it and say it matters. Be conscious of your impact while simultaneously not allowing the criticism and negativity of others to distract you from your work in this world.

5. KEEP UP, KEEP GOING - Every blink, breath and moment is a beginning. You can start over anytime. You can pick up what you put down at any time and keep going. Don’t get complacent with your life, your relationships, your community, your dreams. If you forget where you are or where you’re going, return to #1 and take it from the top.

As we enter into this new cycle, this new frequency and this new year I say THANK YOU to everything that has come before to bring me here. Every single lesson needed to be learned to allow for what’s unfolding now to exist. Thanks to that crushing, shitfucker of decade. Thanks to everybody who supported my evolution to this point. Thanks to Rootstock Retreat for insisting on existing and bringing me home. Sending you all big blessing for the year ahead.

If you find yourself off track, lost, too tired or simply not sure of how to stay connected to your soul truth and your creative destiny, Rootstock offers monthly Moon & Sun Circles for men and women to gather and reconnect with purpose, people, place and intention. We can help each other birth the world that we want to inhabit…

With love and gratitude,

Beana